1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to mobile electronic equipment, such as digital cameras, cell phones, PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), and image viewers, that is capable of displaying characters and drawings together with an image. In particular, it relates to an image-editing process.
2. Description of the Related Art
In mobile equipment with image editing functions, characters and drawings may be superimposed on a displayed image by the user's input operation, and the edited image is recorded or printed out. For example, a touch screen is provided on an LCD monitor as an input device, and the user writes and draws on the touch screen using a stylus. Usually, a tool bar, composed of a series of icons, is displayed on the monitor so that the user can select a line type, stamp type, etc., by touching a given icon with the stylus. The display area of the toolbar grows as editing functions increase, so that the are a available for writing decreases. Since mobile equipment has very limited display are, the user cannot write or draw freely over an entire image.
On the other hand, in the popular amusement arcade photo booths, in which a tool bar is not displayed on the monitor during image-editing. The user can edit a photograph freely. The toolbar is displayed only on depressing a button attached to the stylus. However, in this case, the user must remember many tool functions and consider how to use an editing tool when the tool bar is not displayed.